What I think about when I think about writing

It’s hard to imagine anyone who would not get something out of this film. I saw it for the first time in cinema, and it washed over me in waves of mystery and amazement. For the first hour or so you are asking yourself a lot of obvious questions, along with the narrator who, although actively orchestrating the action, cannot himself believe what he is managing to get away with. As true stories go, you’ll wait a long time for one as preposterous as this to come along again. But then comes the twist. (No spoilers…) The whole thing is turned on its head and you are left reeling.

On second viewing, as with all good twists, you realise it is there the whole time, but, like the narrator you failed to see it. That’s when the enormity of this tragedy really hits you. The power of delusion, denial, and the boundless dangers of our natural instincts to want to be loved, and to want our love not to have been in vain, it’s all here. The Imposter had me fooled. It’s out on DVD now. I do hope you’ll get a chance to see it.